WOS Wrestling returned with a bang this past weekend as the iconic show graced the screens of many households across the country on primetime ITV.

This week’s episode saw the women of World of Sport (WOS) hit the ring to show the UK audience what they can do as they battled to be crowned the first WOS Women’s champion. The victor in that match was none other than Glasgow’s own Kay Lee Ray, a firm favourite across the British wrestling scene.

In an interview with Glasgow Live and Scottish wrestling podcast Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet, Kay Lee reflected on the moment she was told she’d be a part of the revived series.

“I was really excited. I'd heard a couple of rumours that it was looking to come back after the pilot episode. I remember I had a missed call and I said to someone 'is that somebody's number' and they were like 'I don't know, your going to need to phone them back.' Even when it was ringing, there was this anticipation of who's going to answer this phone.

“I don't know who wouldn't want to be part of something that's going to put wrestling back on TV. Plus the fact that a lot of wrestling fans are going to wake up excited about something is the main goal, and I really hope it is World of Sport and I hope everyone tunes in. Regardless, wrestling is so good right now in the UK and I'm very proud to be a part of something that's going to be on TV for people to see.”

Insane Championship Wrestling in Glasgow (Image: ICW/Facebook)

Unlike most of her other peers in the industry, Kay Lee didn’t grow up as a fan of the sport. It was only when she started dating her current boyfriend, former ICW World Heavyweight champion and fellow WOS competitor Stevie Boy, that she decided to give wrestling a shot.

In the nine years since then, she has competed all across the world, in countries such as Japan, as well as being involved with arguably the world’s top two promotions, TNA and WWE, where she was one of 32 competitors to compete in the inaugural Mae Young Classic in 2017.

“When I got to do the tours in TNA, I got to wrestle quite a lot of their women as well so everything was just experience. You never get past the point of learning. You can still train, you can still learn new things and that is what it is for me too. Going in to TNA, going in to the Performance Centre in WWE. It's new experience, its new people giving you advice so to just be there and take in all that advice is excellent and if you’re willing to learn and listen, and then that's the main thing.

“Not everybody's advice might be to your taste, but 9 out of 10 times it's going to help you and it's going to help you succeed. I've been in situations where I've tried to help somebody and what I do doesn't necessarily work for them, but it doesn't mean it won't work for someone else.”

Video Loading

Video Unavailable

Click to playTap to play

The video will start in 8Cancel

Play now

In the current era of wrestling, not every crowd react the same, so performing in front of so many different audiences has helped Kay Lee in her development.

“Every crowd is different and it's like a theatre. You go out there; you learn your crowd and you have to work to that crowd. Not every match is going to be the same, not every crowd is going to take to you the same way. But it's great to go out there and push your abilities to try and make them react and get them to react how you want to react.

“In a theatre, you're going out there, you’re putting something out there and you expect the crowd to laugh or boo. It's the same for us. We want to go out there and make that crowd entertained, so we can get them to come again.”

To Scottish fans, Kay Lee Ray is arguably best known for her time working for Glasgow promotion Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW), where she has faced off with some of the countries top stars, both male and female. Her biggest moment to date with the company, though, came in 2016, when she defeated close friends Carmel and Viper to become ICW Women’s Champion in front of 6,000 people at the SSE Hydro.

Looking back on that victory, she added: “It really meant a lot to me, and it meant even more that I was in there with two of my best friends. To be in there and experience something like that with your best pals is something out of this world, and to have the ICW crowd behind me, and to be cheering for me, even though they weren't supposed to be. They were supposed to be booing me at that point, but that initial cheer, the roar when I won was a special moment.”

Video Loading

Video Unavailable

Click to playTap to play

The video will start in 8Cancel

Play now

One of the starkest differences between the original World of Sport show and the revamped series is the spotlight put on women’s wrestling, which didn’t feature in any sense make when World of Sport was at its peak. Kay Lee is among a number of high quality female athletes set to feature, including Viper, Kasey Owens and Bea Priestley, and with WOS being on a mainstream terrestrial TV in ITV, it’s a chance of all of them, including Kay Lee, to show a new audience what they are capable of.

“We want to push women as much as possible, but I get at those times, it wasn't as easy as just putting them on TV. Women's wrestling was banned in London for years, but I'm just so glad now that there's an opportunity for people to see it and we can go out there and show people why women's wrestling should and is a massive part of WOS.

“I have travelled a lot but I'm not delusional to the fact that there are a lot of people that still don't know my name, so the more people that watch this, the more people who get to see how good I am, and how good everyone else on WOS is. So please watch and be excited by this.”

And of all the competition mentioned, it’s an old foe in BBC star Viper that Kay Lee sees as her main threat going forward on the show.

“Bea (Priestley) is coming into her own right now but Viper will always be the main focus for me to keep an eye on. We've came across each others paths so many times that you can't not keep an eye on her. She's one of the best; she's doing so well, holding five different belts from companies at one point recently.”

WOS Wrestling continues this Saturday at 5pm on STV. You can catch the interview with Kay Lee in full on the Eat SleepSuplex Retweet podcast.